


Foreplay

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, NSFW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:34:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nessian one-shot set sometime after Book 2. NSFW. Some fluff. But mostly smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreplay

“Hit me,” Nesta barked, her face dripping with spit. Cassian shook his head. “Oh come on, take a swing, a punch, something!”

“Ness,” Cassian said, his shoulders sagging. “We’ve been at it all day. And as much as I love seeing you go down on your knees, I think it’s time we called it.”

Cass paid for that one dearly. Nesta knocked him square across his eyes and Cassian had to blink for several long moments before his vision cleared. This girl - this ball of fire and menace - would be the death of him. He didn’t know where his annoyance with her stopped and his obsession with her began, but he couldn’t wait to find out.

When Cassian was able to regain his grounding, he squared himself back up and looked at Nesta, his eyes catching on a long rivulet of sweat that was inking a dangerous little trail from her neck down her chest, lower and lower until it disappeared beneath her already damp shirt. He swallowed in a momentary lapse in concentration he couldn’t help, wondering what would happened if Nesta would let him follow that bead of sweat with his fingers.

“Cassian,” Nesta spat, still in the throws of adrenaline from fighting, feeling the aching need to work off her vicious fury at losing her humanity and gaining the world of magic in return. “If you don’t hit me, I swear to the that fucking cauldron that turned me in to this insane disaster that I will rip your balls off with my bare bloody hands and feed them to you for breakfast. Now hit me!”

Cassian launched himself at her. He had little restraint when it came to obeying an order so direct and assertive from Nesta. He liked a woman with a little spice and Nesta was certainly full of it.

But there was something about what she’d said that had been the real reason he wanted to indulge her, something about the self-deprecation hidden within her words that made him feel an ache to fly at her, not to attack, but to soothe.

Their bodies collided, a mixed ball of sheer will and force simultaneously creating and destroying one another. Was this what happened, Cassian thought to himself, when an immovable object met an unstoppable force?

They fell to the ground, rough pavement meeting their skin, catching a little more of Nesta so that she cried out as it scraped against her back and Cassian slid his hands up the length of her arms until she was pinned beneath him. She struggled, bucking instantly at the feel of being trapped, but hours of having a go at the toughest Illyrian warrior seemed to have finally taken its toll. Unable to retain her independence, Nesta scowled and spit in Cassian’s face, throwing in a “Bastard!” for good measure.

It took everything in Cass not to throw it back in her face, she was so damn infuriating, but he knew deep down it was nothing more than her way of protecting herself, of trying to cover her vulnerability with callous insults and scars. Had that not been what today was all about? Why she had come to him after lunch looking for a fight, a way to break free from this form she now found so revolting? Nesta normally wouldn’t spare Cassian more than a passing glance if she could help it, but it was always to Cassian she came when her rages became too much and she needed an escape, to feel like she could beat her way out of this new life with punches and blood.

But not today. Cassian had a lesson to teach and he was gonna make damn well sure Nesta learned it whether she pretended to forget it later or not.

“Nesta,” Cassian said when she continued to struggle. Even in clear defeat, she was relentless.

“Get off of me,” Nesta snarled. “I hate this. I hate you and you know it.”

Cass shook his head and loosened his grip on her just enough to let her know he wasn’t looking to hurt her.

“No you don’t, Nesta. Now will you do me a favor?”

Nesta rolled her eyes, still writhing beneath him. He was starting to lose his concentration feeling her body move and grope around against him on the hard concrete.

“Ugh, what is this, some sick idea of foreplay?” Nesta asked, but she didn’t sound disgusted as her words suggested. Cassian laughed a little.

“No this isn’t foreplay! I just want to ask you to look at me.”

“As if,” Nesta said, jerking her head as far away from him as she could manage.

“Nesta, come on. Just do it. Looking in to my eyes, although a near orgasmic experience I’m told, won’t kill you.”

Nesta continued to stare off at the ocean waters far off in the distance from where they lay broken against each other in the middle of their hillside wilderness. She was stubborn with an iron will even at the best of times and this was clearly not her best. He’d have to try a different tactic if he wanted to win her over.

Lowering his face closer to her neck, to where those tiny precious beads of sweat had fallen earlier, Cassian allowed his lips to hover an inch off her skin, breathing sticky sweet air onto her skin. He moved along the length of her neck until he reached her ear, where he whispered low and tender, “Nesta, love. Hurting you is the last thing in the world I’d want. Please look at me.” He slid his hands up further on her arms until his hands were able to cover hers. He was glad when her fingers opened to accept his own without a fight.

“Please…” he whispered again.

Joy erupted in his heart when Nesta allowed him the smallest of victories, a prize that happened too infrequently. He was honored she would give it to him. Slowly her head turned and because Cassian still hadn’t raised himself back off her, their cheeks touched. Her lips were right there. If he turned his head not even half an inch to his right, he could kiss her. It took everything in his concentration not to break then and there and give in to that desire, but instead, he forced his head back just enough so that Nesta could fulfill his request and look him in the eyes.

“You are not a disaster, Nesta,” Cassian said, throwing every ounce of sincerity into his voice that he could find. She had to believe him. She could hate him. She could deny him, live her life without him if that’s what she wanted. But Cassian needed her to know that she wasn’t this ghastly mistake that she believed she was. “Did you hear me? I said you’re not a disaster.”

Cassian was so taken aback by the tears that welled up in Nesta’s eyes, he almost released her then and there.

“Yes I am,” she hissed, obviously trying to sound fierce, but failing miserable. “But so are you.”

Cassian shuddered at the honesty. Few people were able to see through to the truth of him so quickly as Nesta did. No one had ever called him out like this before, at least, not to his face. Not even Rhys and Az, or Heaven forbid, Mor would have been so honest with him as to label him as fucked up as Nesta thought she was, at least they wouldn’t have without some trace of a joke behind it.

He smiled, a small little tug at the corners of his lips. He was pleased when Nesta offered a small, almost unnoticeable smile in return even though a tear had managed to escape and spill across her cheeks. Without thinking, Cassian swooped down and kissed the tear away, tasting the salt of her on his lips.

“Oh…” Nesta gasped in surprise at being so cared for. At last, Cassian felt her hands relax in his own.

“Nesta,” he sighed, his mouth once more at her ear. “If you are a disaster it is only because you are so utterly exquisite and perfect, the rest of the world simply does not know how to keep up.”

And then in a move he hoped she would not rebuke him for, he pressed a kiss below her ear. Sure enough, Nesta reacted, her hands flying at him, but just as he was about to counter, thinking she meant to attack him again, he felt the pressure of her fingers meet his neck as her hands wrapped around him. She was holding on to him, no clinging to him.

“Tell me more,” she demanded, equal parts desperate and intrigued as her voice cracked. Good Heavens, had no one ever shown this woman a day of love in her life? The clear answer was no, no one had.

But Cassian would.

Trailing kisses down her neck, Cassian continued his murmurs.

“You are only insane, as you put it, because you exist on a level too high for anyone else to aspire to.”

He felt her fingers increase the pressure in her hold on his neck.

“You are too brazen, too brash, too honest because you care so much about the people you love that you need them to know the truth of how you feel rather than let them be swallowed by darkness. You protect…”

“Cass…” Nesta choked out not unhappily and he winced in pain as her fingernails dug in a little too deep, scratching just beneath the skin of his shoulders. He wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a little blood pooling there and it sent his head into a frenzy that made him dive into Nesta completely. His head plunged into the top of her damp shirt, his tongue licking until it found where that bead of sweat had made a home, and he lapped at it, sliding his tongue against the sweat and back up the exposure of her chest and chin until his lips almost met hers.

“And don’t you ever for one second think you are ugly just because no one has ever before had the power to dare and look head on at such stunning beauty as yours. Nesta…”

Nesta’s lips consumed him, biting down hard on his lower lip. He growled from the pain, welcoming it, delighting in it. He could share her pain forever if she let him, if it would finally prove to her how important she really was.

For a few minutes, they were nothing but teeth and scratches and sweat and pain, lust and need taking over as they rolled around on the hard, unyielding ground that seemed to echo their relationship. Nesta’s hands roamed everywhere with no trace of shyness to be found. Cassian took each new touch as encouragement and ravaged her, making sure she understood how worthy she was of praise and pleasure. Only one thing was certain, he wasn’t letting her go until she was utterly convinced of her perfection.

His tongue was making a lazy sweep down her stomach from where he’d pulled up her shirt, nearing the lining of her pants when the tiniest of moans made him pause.

“Cass…”

His head whipped up and his eyes went wide taking her in from this angle. She was so damn beautiful and she didn’t even know it.

But Nesta didn’t say anything. She just stared back at him until a delicious smile carved her face and she sprung at him, pushing him off and away until she was atop him, her fingers yanking her shirt off. “Off, off, off,” she growled, a feral tone overtaking her.

“Are you sure…” Cass started to say, but Nesta stopped dead in her tracks and downright snarled at him, her lips curling venomously and her eyes snapping with demand.

Cassian didn’t hesitate. In a flash, his shirt was on the ground next to her own and their pants - cauldron, their pants! Nesta’s were gone in a flash, but Cassian’s were a struggle until Nesta took the knife strapped at his hip and tore the fabric to shreds until he was free. He’d never been so hard in his life.

He grabbed her, yanking her to him with force and slammed her back to the pavement. The wince she’d given earlier at skin scratching against concrete became a moan of ecstasy that sent Cassian removing their undergarments until at long last there was nothing but skin and heat between them.

He didn’t even have to nudge her legs apart, she was already spread wide for him, dripping wet with herself so earnestly that Cassian could see it spilling out of her, glistening in the sunlight. His fingers went wild, digging into her with aggression so that he could lap up her wetness and lick it off his fingers. The site of him hovering over her, tasting her with that smug cocky smirk of his drove Nesta wild.

She flung her legs up and around his waist and pulled so that he was forced to fall back down against her, his insistent cock finding itself right against the folds of her. The message was clear enough and Cassian laughed with the directness of it all. He could get used to taking orders if this was how it felt.

And so, he plunged in. And fuck, if she didn’t feel so right wrapped around him. He worried for half a heart beat that maybe it was too much, that he might hurt her, but Nesta looked at him devilishly and purred, “Come here.” Her hands twisted around his back just below where the membranes of his wings met his skin, and she clawed, her nails ripping in to him.

Cassian roared and sheathed himself inside her so deeply, over and over again until Nesta was writing with pleasure, moaning for all of the city beneath them to hear. Her back arched pressing her up closer to him and he knew she was close, knew by the way he was throbbing inside her while her hips bucked that he was too. So he took one look at one of her hard and pinched nipples and bit down on it.

Nesta’s scream pierced the air as she came. If anyone had had any doubts as to who Nesta had spent the day with, they didn’t now. As Nesta started her descent, Cass meant to stroke her through the final throws of it, but Nesta pushed at him until he was forced over on his side and she was riding him hard. He could see her hair drenched with sweat sticking to her neck like ivy to wall.

“What?” Nesta said with delight. “You didn’t think I was going to let you get away with that, did you?”

Cassian threw his head back, the sheer pleasure of this woman overtaking him as she devoured him. He came quickly, filling her with every piece of him he had left to give and they collapsed on the ground together, covered in dirt and dust and adrenaline.

Nesta’s chest started shaking against Cassian even as he pulled her closer to him. Worried, he turned to look at her, hoping he hadn’t made a mistake, hurt her, or worse, that she suddenly realized what had just happened and regretted everything.

But Nesta wasn’t shaking because she was crying. She was laughing.

“What the hell, Ness?”

“I was just thinking,” Nesta said, barely able to get the words out between breathes. “If that wasn’t your version of foreplay, I can’t wait to find out what is.”

For the first time since he’d known her, Nesta smiled, enraptured in a fit of giggles as she wondered at what his real moves would be. Cassian was only too willing to show her.


End file.
